Enermax Gold: Modu87+ and Pro87+
by Christoph Katzer on January 19, 2010 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
A look Inside
When opening this unit we couldn't really see anything different inside than you'd see in other power supplies. If you take a closer look you will find a few differences though. In fact this unit uses some of the same technology as Seasonic does in their latest X-series. Enermax's so called Dynamic Hybrid Transformer technology, part of the "resonant topology", is nothing more than a kind of gearbox for the components. This way Enermax can regulate the voltage that goes into the capacitor ranging from roughly 330V to 400V. If the load on the DC output is low the voltage to the capacitor will be lower as well, resulting in better efficiency. The same goes for the frequencies which will be decreased with higher loads and increased when the DC load is lower.
In the secondary part we see two "DC to DC" sister PCBs where the 5V and 3.3V rails are created. Below these two sister PCBs we find capacitors attached to another PCB vertically. Enermax actually carries a patent for this arrangement which is space saving and enhances the cooling of the attached components. Oh and don't mention the blue heatsinks. They do look strange inside a black and golden schemed power supply, but as you can remember back at Computex the housing was still dark matte black with a red fan installed. It made sense at the time and Enermax unfortunately had already produced all of the heatsinks and were unable to change those when the new look was introduced. For component geeks, there is a Rubycon capacitor in the primary and a lot of Nippon Chemi-Con caps in the secondary. The solid-state caps are made in Taiwan, though.
The overall quality is as we would expect from Enermax, but they still managed to top former achievements. As they previously worked with PCBs made of synthetic resin bonded paper (FR-2), things always looked a little shabby inside. With the new multi-layer PCB it all looks much cleaner and adds a huge percentage of quality to the units.
The Fan
Since Enermax bought its own fan company a while ago they started producing a wide range of funky fans. Together with their twister bearing they have come up with some pretty good fans lately and are in fact able to diversify the product ranges according to their actual needs. In the case of the Modu87+ and Pro87+ for example Enermax wanted a larger fan; 140mm is the largest possible in an ATX power supply today and it's already patented, so Enermax decided to make a 139mm fan themselves. Together with golden blades this fan looks truly amazing, and we are happy that there aren't any LEDs. The fan carries the model number EA142512W-OAB. Enermax also worked on the Hall-IC inside the fan and made it possible to run the fan at incredibly low RPMs, which we will see later.
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FaaR - Thursday, January 21, 2010 - link
You're too focused on price only. A PSU isn't something you buy every day. Better to get a great, efficient unit that has headroom to grow and will last you many years, even if it costs a little more.And yes, fifty bucks is a little more. Most people on Anandtech wouldn't whine if they have to pay $200 for a video card, and we all know how fast they go obsolete. Get some perspective here please.
The PSU is arguably THE most important piece of equipment in your whole PC. If it doesn't function well, nothing else will either. So there's nothing wrong with buying one of the best units out there, quite the opposite.
Kibbles - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
Actually this is more like a $600-700 videocard amongst PSUs. Most will be happy enough with a HD5870. Many PSUs in the $100 range, like the HX620, are damn good. However like any other computer component, those extra 5% costs just as much as the first 95%.Spacecomber - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
I happy to see another P/S review on Anandtech. I don't think that there have been any in quite a while. While these Enermax models are very nice, the price probably makes them impractical for any builds that I can imagine.However, one thing that I really like about these power supplies is their very low noise output. As I move away from building game-centric computers to computers that are likely to be used more as media servers, keeping the noise down to being virtually inaudiable becomes more important to me (especially for a music server). For these kind of computers I don't need a huge amount of power, and therefore I'm not looking to invest a huge amount of money in the P/S. I'm really looking for a power supply that can give me the quietest experience for the least amount of money. (To get a really quiet P/S, I accept that I'll be spending more than one would expect to spend on most "budget" power supplies.)
Anyway, this is just a suggestion that perhaps others are also looking for something more like this for their living rooms, instead of a kilowatt P/S to drive an overclocked quad core monster with multiple video cards.
- Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
The first three graphs on p.11 look like they need more labeling. Looks like you need to show which PSU for efficiency.mariush - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
On page 10, I somehow doubt the readings were made at 50C room temperature (see chart headers)JarredWalton - Thursday, January 21, 2010 - link
As mentioned below, the tested was done in a temperature controlled chamber, so the ambient temp was indeed 50C. I would update the graphs, but Christoph custom-made these charts so I'll leave that to him. :)JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
Fixed... the same graph was initially inserted on all three as you may have noticed.markshin - Saturday, July 24, 2010 - link
i bought a Modu87+ 700W, because i needed a new psu to replace my 5-year old 70% efficient unit..I don't intend to run this at 100% load, that's sheer madness. 30-60% is the sweet spot for today's PSU's, that's where they are most efficient.
and also, they're selling for about US$150 (at least from where I'm located).
:-)
MasonStorm@AnandTech - Friday, October 1, 2010 - link
Hi Chris,Thanks for the great review. Any chance you can update the results to include the new, 800W and 900W models they've just released? I'd love to see if those also stay silent at all loads.